Site Retooling: PVSWiki

Educational/K-12 information and site structure
Finalized Voter Registration section changes and site structure
Membership site structure

Files

See RetoolingFiles

The following do not currently work:

Sorry, a file named Nav_Wireframe.pdf does not exist. - A wireframe mocking up navigational elements.
Sorry, a file named Search-Path.pdf does not exist. - Data navigational paths for Search(1.x and 2.x) and Issue nav(3.x).
Sorry, a file named future_path.pdf does not exist. - Data nav paths for Future(5.x) and Present(6.x).
Sorry, a file named Page_Descriptions.doc does not exist. - Descriptions of all the pages included in the data path flow charts.
Sorry, a file named pvs-2010.xmi does not exist. - Preliminary UML of the site software.
Sorry, a file named uml-20100623.png.tgz does not exist. - PNG version of the UML

Target Audience

Targets and their special needs.

Citizens

Look up candidates and incumbents that represent them also, what ballot measures in there state, what would a sample ballot look like for them?
Will want to be able to look by zip, person's last name, and issue area
My PVS website for return users/customizable (E-alerts)?

Researchers

Need access to lists and various ways to look up information(need detail)
Would include journalists, who may want to make data specific to the districts they cover (at times)
Would like archival versions of our site/data and be able to export data, csv files, etc

Students

Representatives of their area and schooling material(need detail)
Easy access to our political resources sections

Questions

Questions that need to be answered/addressed during the planning phase(technical or otherwise).

General

Usability

Needs to be accessible to the disabled and people with older computers
Side-by-side comparisons of data, people don't like to open multiple windows to view multiple people
Navigation needs to be very simple.

Technical

Performance, try and keep queries down per page

Appearance

Simple easy entry points
We need to keep calls for donations in mind
Will likely want an area to advertise new programs/new to our site info
May want to continue with a PVS in the news sort of feature

Discussion

Comments(below) and E-mail would be better for this.

To Do

Resource

NYT API - http://developer.nytimes.com/docs
NYT/C-SPAN API - http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/congress-api-additions-bills-and-floor-appearances/

CategorySoftwareProjects

Comments [Hide comments]

Comment by RobinParkinson

2009-03-03 09:54:13

Our main advertising strategy for the past few years has been that we're a Voter's Self Defense system--but average people who know little about politics tend to struggle the most use our website. Perhaps a main goal should be to find a way to present our information to them without it being overwhelming or confusing. Either that, or change our media strategy and remove any mention of the self defense system on the website, and rename the manual if we decide to focus on a different target audience.

Comment by SaraBrady

2009-03-03 16:38:16

Agreed, we need to make at least our homepage simple so people can get to easy data first, then they can dig deeper. I think the VSDS stays, kinda like a tagline, other orgs like the Institute on Money and State Politics has followthemoney or Center for Responsive Politics has Open Secrets - I hope people just know PVS one day but I'm going to guess the board will not be so quick to let Voter Self-Defense System go. But perhaps it's just a line on our wesbite and the easy access to data proves it.

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